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TRACKchanges: Little May

Music at its core is human connection; it’s intrinsically tied to emotions and experiences. Every song has a story, every lyric a section of an artist’s psyche. That’s exactly why we want to examine the impact of music on musicians themselves. Each week we’ll get an insight into a particular song or album that’s proven formative for an artist.

Power duo Little May share their story in this edition of TRACKchanges. During the confusion of recording a new album, John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band proved to be a grounding experience.

For a few years I’ve bounced around and gone through phases and times of loving and attaching myself to different styles and methods of making music. Truthfully, there is so much I like about all music and how it can be made. But in a time where we can see, do, and share everything – there’s just so much of it all.

Around the time we were making the Little May record I often found myself confused. I thought it would be wise to open up my mind to absolutely everything. By doing this, I learnt a lot, but in the process I sometimes forgot what music was for me. When I was young, I wasn’t so overstimulated. My parents record collection was tangible and the existence of each release was permanent and profound to me, and so too were the sounds. I didn’t have anyone telling me or showing me what I should like, or who I should be, or what was right or wrong about what I was doing, saying or hearing in music. Napster and Limewire made it a little more hectic, but I would still wait 2 days to download one album. I’d put that on a CD or iPod, and absorb that for the next 2 years or so. It was my own little secret, sacred and isolated experience.

As technology has progressed at a pace that genuinely scares me, I’ve often fallen hard at the best of times. I’ve become too busy to listen, too distracted by the things that don’t really matter, too influenced by others, and just too overstimulated for my own good. So much so that when I’d go to write songs, I’d find it harder than when I first started.

When we started making the new Little May record, Rob Muinos, one of the producers & our lead guitarist, mentioned that John Lennon’s record Plastic Ono Band (1970) inspires how he records music. I had heard this record before, but when I was much younger. This record is just one of the few I now listen to regularly. It grounds me in a way I know I need. It reminds me of the power of vulnerability, and not the fabricated or manipulative kind. It reminds me of the power of simplicity in music and in life, and in the power of my own unique and uninhibited experience of music.